1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a strobe device in which light emitted from a light source is partly reflected, by a reflecting mirror, so that resultant rays of light including the reflected light and direct light from the light source can be emitted from the strobe device.
2. Description of Related Art
A known strobe device has a reflector which is provided behind a light source to reflect a part of light emitted from the light source, so that the reflected light can be emitted together with the direct light from the light source from the strobe device towards an object to be photographed. In the conventional strobe device, the reflector is usually made of an elliptical reflecting mirror. The light source is usually located at one (first focus) of the focus points of the elliptical reflecting mirror. Consequently, for example, a light flux which directly reaches a Fresnel lens (condenser lens) provided in front of the reflecting mirror, without being reflected by the elliptical reflecting mirror, is converged by the Fresnel lens (condenser lens), so that the illumination angle is reduced.
On the other hand, a light flux emitted from the light source and reflected by the reflecting mirror essentially has an elliptical cross section, and accordingly, tends to be converged onto a second focus which is located closer to the light source than the theoretical second focus of the elliptical reflecting mirror by the Fresnel lens. However, if the image of the direct light and the image of the reflected light reflected from the reflecting mirror are formed at different positions, there might be a serious image distortion between the two images relative to the aberration of the Fresnel lens. Consequently, an irregular quantity of light occurs at points of an image, particularly at the center of the image.